Citations:ergative


 * 1)  With the subjects of transitive constructions having grammatical cases or thematic relations different from those of from intransitive constructions.
 * To illustrate what is meant by an ‘Ergativeʼ structure, consider the following set of examples: (155) (a)     John broke the door (155) (b)      The door broke (156) (a)      John might drown the kittens (156) (b)      The kittens might drown (157) (a)      The artillery will sink the ship (157) (b)      The ship will sink (158) (a)      John rolled the ball down the hill (158) (b)      The ball rolled down the hill Following the terminology adopted in Chapter 7 (after Burzio (1986), p. 30), we might say that the (a) member of each of these pairs is a transitive structure, and the (b) member an ergative structure. In Burzioʼs use of the term, an ergative Clause is an intransitive Clause which has a transitive counterpart in which the transitive Object corresponds to the ergative Subject.
 * To illustrate what is meant by an ‘Ergativeʼ structure, consider the following set of examples: (155) (a)     John broke the door (155) (b)      The door broke (156) (a)      John might drown the kittens (156) (b)      The kittens might drown (157) (a)      The artillery will sink the ship (157) (b)      The ship will sink (158) (a)      John rolled the ball down the hill (158) (b)      The ball rolled down the hill Following the terminology adopted in Chapter 7 (after Burzio (1986), p. 30), we might say that the (a) member of each of these pairs is a transitive structure, and the (b) member an ergative structure. In Burzioʼs use of the term, an ergative Clause is an intransitive Clause which has a transitive counterpart in which the transitive Object corresponds to the ergative Subject.